Rolen Boeseraven
Rolen Boeseraven RBR is about 6', 150 lbs. lithe-athletic build, dark brown hair with a silver/gray streak and a beard. Kind of wild-eyed but friendly-looking. Appears as a warlock in his black studded leather armor with Abysm symbol on chest, face covered by hood/cowl. Still working on drawing. (Sir?) Rolen Boeseraven Character Background (He's a noble so it says he should have some sort of title? Maybe read on and something will come to you?) Rolen was born a bastard of Lord Boeseraven, the capable and benevolent head of a ruling family in some minor northern portion of the kingdom. Let's say they rule an area of prosperous farms and woods large enough to have a decently-sized town with walls and a modest castle. Rolen's mother is an elf maiden about whom he knows little. Lord Boeseraven had a soft spot for his bastards and put Rolen in the capable care of a steward, or something. Rolen was brought up outside of the castle but Lord BR kept tabs on him. Lord BR saw an early version of himself in Rolen: bright and cunning, a natural leader, tempered with striking half-elf features. Lord BR made the decision to bring Rolen into the castle ultimately to be a positive influence on his own heir, Horace. Rolen is slightly older than Horace maybe 10 or 11 to Horace's 8 or 9. Rolen is brought in as sort of an unconventional bodyguard/paid friend. Rolen's good looks and ease with nearly everyone made him a natuarul hit at court in spite of his bastard status. Though he lacked martial training, Rolen excelled in many athletic pursuits (won archery competitions, bullshit). This pissed Horace off. Horace truly counted Rolen as a friend but Horace was super jealous of Rolen because Horace was a plump, weird dude. He shunned the sort of pursuits that brought you social relevance in favor of study of faerie tales and the arcane. Time passed as it does and the two half-brothers went on in this way. Rolen honed his ability to persuade, intimidate, and smooth over as Lord BR less and less (with age) would leave his keep and more and more rely on Rolen to be his voice (emissary, ambassador) in negotiations with other aristocracy. On Horace's 18th birthday, Rolen was named Honor Guard of the Lord Prince and made officially a Boeseraven (revoking his bastard status). The Lord Prince would leave the keep on a mission of good will or conquest but all understood that it was Rolen who spoke and acted with the authority of The Lord BR. Again, this was largely due to the fact that Horace rarely appeared in public at all for even a moment- even the closest to him (even Rolen, probably) assumed that Horace preferred Rolen as the frontman. Eventaully, the Boeseravens run afoul of some super aggressive new nobles in an adjacent kingdom. They're conquering and seizing land in this portion of the kingdom using necromancers and shit. Bad hombres. They promise to lay seige to the Boeseravens and kill them and shit. The Boeseravens are pretty confident, though, because their town is walled and pretty seige-ready and they have a pretty strong army. Lord BR is alive but ill and it's clear that he has little time left to protect his people. Rolen knows that with the threat of these necromancers looming, he has to talk some sense into Horace and get him to accept the mantle of leadership. But Horace isn't hearing it. Horace (a 28 year old man at this point) begs Rolen to accompany him down to a long-forgotten section of the castle that passes beneath and into a nearby cliff. All Horace can talk about is "harnessing some ancient power" or some shit. Rolen indulges him to an extent but they reach a dead end in this creepy half-dome chamber with a diamond-shaped spiral carved into the floor and Horace begins pouring over weird runes on the walls. Rolen is nearly disgusted with his half-brother for his lack of seriousness and essentially drags Horace out of the chamber and back to the castle proper. Within a week this necromancer army will advance on the gates of the town. Rolen has to get Horace to lead his people. Rolen begins making preparations with Lord BR's guidance. A couple of nights later, Rolen's awoken by the clang of steel. He puts on his guard armor quickly and steps out of his chamber with katars at the ready (katars are punching daggers). He sees murdered servants and armsmen in the hallway and he frantically searches for Horace who does not seem to be in his chambers. He encounters and carves up a few Death Dealers, assasins that run with the necromancer army. Rolen's runnning throughout the castle but can't find Horace anywhere when he has the odd sense to check the creepy chamber from a few nights ago. "Maybe he's hiding in there?" Rolen arrives in the chamber to see Horace kneeling with his back to Rolen in front of what looks lik e an ever-growing swirl of shimmering, black smoke emanating from the spiral carved into the center of the room. Horace is bloodied but uninjured and is entirely transfixed by the horrifying cloud/thing before him. Rolen is transfixed, too as a thousand terrible, distorted, reverby voices cry out and coalesce into the phrase, "We, Abysm." Suddenly, Rolen understands everything. He stares into the shimmering black magic smoke and understands that it is representative of a long dead or trapped god-like deity, Abysm. Rolen sees ancient magical beings that inhabited and likely were the original builders of this very spot. That they built this chamber under the mountain, perhaps as a temple. They were all simultaneously wiped out in an awful (unjust?) event and their souls coalesced into Abysm after death. Abysm is a multi-faceted, maybe insane deity, and Rolen gets the impression that Abysm may or may not be aware of he and Horace but that being in this facsimile of Abysm's presence was enough to force this awareness on him. Rolen looks at Horace and understands. Rolen, for the first time, understands Horace's hatred and jealousy of him and he sees the events leading up to this moment: how Horace and he had first come down to this strange chamber and Horace had translated a spell of summoning for Abysm from the runes. The spell required (amongst other things) a "prince smeared with the blood of his people" and Rolen saw how Horace had met with agents of the necromancer army and conspired to secretly allow the Death Dealers into the castle as precursors to the invasion of the main army. Rolen saw that Horace sought to harness the ancient power of Abysm to defeat the necromancer's army and lead his people but was twisted in his logic by his jealousy of Rolen. That somehow this was all to get back at Rolen. Rolen understands the power and the madness that has touched him and can see how it has destroyed Horace. Rolen understands that he has never truly been free. That he has always been saddled by obligation and identity. That Rolen only desires freedom but that he can only be free if all are free. That Rolen despises oppression and those that would impose it, like the necromancer army. Rolen understands that his desires match those of the Abysm. The power. Freedom. The power. Freedom. Destroy. Freedom. The eternal moment ends, the smoke and visions disappear and Rolen is left holding an odd smoky purple crystal (his arcane focus, if you stare into it you can see the spiral thing that is the symbol for Abysm, The Schismed). Horace is blubbering and muttering, "it chose you?... it chose you?..." From this point on, Horace is enfeebled (the family blames it on shock at seeing the violence of the attack that night, only Rolen is aware of the truth and aware that Horace was the indirect cause of the violence in the castle that night). Rolen goes and uses his new warlocky powers to whoop ass on the Death Dealers, then Rolen rallies the troops. The role of the Death Dealers was to weaken the Boeseravens' defenses by murdering key targets and then ultimately opening the front gates so that the necromancer army can march on the city. Rolen understands this and goes out and challenges the lead necromancer, Disonant Whispering him to Shitsville just outside the city gates. Rolen is a hero to all (he kind of already was, the commoners see him as a benevolent noble and an admirable leader though also one of them given his modest early upbringing- Rolen would be famous locally for winning tounaments and shit). Lord BR survives the attack but is still in failing health and Rolen (with Horace pretty much a vegetable) is poised to be Lord BR's heir, especially now with the rep as the defender and savior of the city. Rolen has everything he's ever wanted but, now, doesn't want it. Rolen only wants to be free. For all to be free. Rolen is terribly disturbed by the dark secret of what Horace did and it drives him from the castle. Rolen understands that this brush with The Abysm has changed him and that pact magic is forbidden. At the same time, Rolen has now witnessed firsthand the good this power could do to fight evil and oppression. Rolen decides to leave the castle and the Boeseraven lands to 1. seek out and destroy oppression and evil 2. understand the entity The Abysm and more about his newfound powers, etc. This all occurred about 3 years before the campaign takes place. Roland is 33 now and bounces around from town to town and place to place basically being the reverse of a stereotypical worm- tongued warlock. He uses his natural and learned powers of persuasion, intimidation, leadership, etc. (and magic powers) to gain influence in courts and small council meetings across the land to fight oppression and do good on the peoples' behalf. He maintains the identity of Rolen Boeseraven and is careful to dissociate magic use from Rolen because he understands that being known as a warlock would forever keep him out of noble privlege and influence (and maybe burned at the stake, instead). Rolen's careful to never use magic (if he can help it) around society members and those whome he perceives as more powerful magic users for fear of being found out. He may use his telepathy or prestidigitation to aid in intimidating if he feels he can get away with it. Dressed as a noble, RBR might be recognized on the street by commoners or nobles alike in his geographic region of the kingdom- the stories about him would be about his benevolence and his bravery against the necromancer army and he takes advantage of this reputation to achieve his ends or gain information. Rolen maintains a sort of dual identity by disguising himself beneath a hooded cloak. He would likely come to a town and mingle with commoners for the first few weeks to gather information about local nobles then might approach the nobles as Boeseraven, having already found out enough about said noble for Rolen to be effective in gaining trust (usually through eloquent flattery...). The end game for Rolen might be a lowered tax or the removal of occupying troops or even the disgrace or mysterious death of a particularly nasty aristocrat. Rolen doesn't stay in one place for very long and is careful not to burn his bridges. Though he frequently has access to stay in noble accomodations he usually prefers to stay out in the wilds or more secluded parts of town as he wishes to keep his arcane research and exploration of his powers a secret. This rough living does provide him opportunity to use his more combat-based powers from time to time. Publically, Boeseraven is likely to reach for his katars as his weapon of choice. He is known as a skilled fighter (and is a skilled fighter) but is not seen as (and is not) a soldier. Rolen is unsure if all of his actions of late are not completely motivated by his brush with The Abysm. In game terms, maybe you could say it shifted his alignment form lawful or neutral to chaotic good, though this was maybe just an indulgence of his elf side, anyway. Rolen spends a great deal of time staring into his arcane focus, can't help but frequently prestidigitate The Abysm symbol onto things he passes by, and is occassionally prone to unpredictable behavior and moods maybe due to the multi- faceted nature of The Abysm. Rolen's dreams are sometimes haunted by Horace and The Abysm (or, like, the genocide that led to the creation of the Abysm, or some shit). In spite of all this, Rolen still enjoys competition, art&music, a drink and a good conversation and maybe some pipeleaf. He sees these things as the jewels of freedom and takes them pretty seriously as such (in terms of their neccessity). He, for the first time, has no structure or precursor to his actions and he enjoys that, though he deeply fears that perhaps all of the impulses he's following come from The Abysm. He is unsure of the nature of The Abysm but he is uneasy... -back to Character Profiles